Back in mid October I had the distinct pleasure of sharing a weekend in New York with a dear friend and many members of my "medicine" soul family for Sli An Chroi (Walking the Pathway of the Heart) an Irish Shamanic gathering.

My paternal grandmother – Mary Mahoney was born in Ireland – Inniscarra County Cork to be exact and came over on the boat when she was still in her late teens. I look like the "spitting image" of her according to family and looking at some of the old photos I’d say that’s pretty accurate. Mary Mahoney lived to be 99 and was only 4 months shy of her 100th birthday when she passed back in 1981. She danced with me at my high school graduation the summer before she passed and still had all her own teeth – imagine that!

Anyway back to the weekend gathering – for any of you who’ve been following me and my work for some time you may be aware of the fact that I am the child of an alcoholic and that much of my life and many of the challenges and difficulties that I have worked long and hard to heal were rooted in the pain and the wounds of that upbringing. I myself wrestled with several addiction issues in my late teens, throughout my 20’s and into my early 30’s, after which my son was born and I cleaned up my act almost completely although I would still drink on occasion and when I did it was often to excess. Finally at 40 I "received" one of my first messages from the Angels and also from my (at that point deceased) father from the other side. By then I had begun my spiritual shift in earnest and had been working with yoga and had my first crystal healing – the message was "Alcohol no longer serves you – it causes your vibration to be lowered dramatically and it takes you 3 – 4 times longer to regain your present vibratory rate following drinking". I took the message seriously – and have not consumed alcohol (except a sip occasionally in sacred ceremony or at a celebration) ever since.

One of the things that immediately happened for me is that I got 100% (or more) clearer and was able to shift/uplevel my frequency consistently so that over time I’ve been able to manifest a lot of good for my self and for others. I did however still carry a "charge" around alcohol. My brother is alcoholic and my husbands both had alcohol issues as well which contributed in some part to the ending of both of those marriages. This past spring the "charge" showed up for me in a business relationship – I was with someone who I thought was really clear and conscious and discovered at an event we both attended that she was a drinker – more than just a glass of wine at dinner – she drank more than a few drinks of hard alcohol at every meal and evening event – the weird part was that there were other folks there drinking and it didn’t bother me in the least – this person though I just wanted to get as far away from this otherwise brilliant woman as possible – specifically because of her drinking.

So what’s this got to do with my Irish Shamanic gathering weekend you might ask?? Well guess what was on the altar that was laid out in the meeting room when we arrived – that’s right – a bottle of Jameson’s Irish Whiskey. This was my big invitation – from the Universe - to finally come into right relationship with alcohol. To see that like every other blessed thing in the Universe – it is a part of the sacred fabric. We did a LOT of work that weekend. Mostly through the Fulacht Fia – a womb/tomb hole that we opened up in Mother Earth (see the picture at the top – isn’t it beautiful – surrounded by our created offerings of beauty from the fields and land where we were working). Healing the Divine Masculine & Feminine energies within us, some really intense ancestral healing, a communion with our anchor trees, fire ceremony, the Faerie Rites and more – the final evening included a passing round the fire of that bottle of Jameson’s.

I didn’t have a drink – but one of my medicine sistars – in fact she was MY Anam Cara (Soul Friend – the person that I shared my ‘stuff’ with all weekend) – certainly did. In fact she became so intoxicated that she passed out on the cold field and had to be bodily lifted to her car by her husband and three of the other men who were present. The following day when it came time to come to closure on the whole event I had digested (and so had the Earth) quite a bit of my own judgment, as well as any remaining “charge” I was carrying in my luminous energy field around alcohol. There was a LOT of info that was channeled through to me about it and one of the interesting pieces that came through for me was that at one time in our human history alcohol was one of the ways that we “stored” food energy in the times when we didn’t have all the modern conveniences that we do today. The dis-ease of Alcoholism (along with many other of our modern diseases) has come out of being out of balance with the earth and with the place that each element has in the creation. It has been one of the ways of escaping our pain of separation from our true nature and our Mother the Earth – that in the end only creates more pain and suffering because it can not cure that underlying schism – only our choice to heal our own hearts and come back into right relationship can do that.

As we were closing up the Fulacht Fia – I gave a blessing – to my dad, to my Irish Ancestors, to my Anam Cara (who was horribly hung over), to our hosts, to my Irish Shaman Brother John Cantwell and his lovely life partner/wife Karen Ward and finally to the spirit of Spirits – I took a mouthful of that Jameson’s and spit it right into the fire and I brought home the healing too. On my ancestral altar in a place of honor I have placed a little nippy bottle of Chivas Regal – my dad’s high end favorite and a bottle of Jameson’s in honor of my medicine work and my Irish lineage. It did not escape me that my dad’s given name is James, the same name I gave to my own son. The ancestral curse stops with me.

If you are curious and want to find out more about Irish shamanism I’m contemplating the co-creation of a little journey at some point in the future with Karen and John – they are magical beings and I’m incredibly grateful for their presence in my life and for their dedication to doing the Great Work. All photos are from the weekend and came from John and Karen. Let me know if you have an interest in perhaps making a trip with me to the Emerald Isle.

[…] to my alcoholic father who had his own thing going on (see prior posts about Jamesons and the Fulact Fia) – some of which was her own stuff that came from an abused childhood of her own. Anyway […]